


The Heart Grows Fonder

by twelvicity (Rii)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Break Up, Comfort, First Love, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Reunions, Scents & Smells, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:12:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4576404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rii/pseuds/twelvicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Iron Bull had a long, long history of lovers leaving him. He didn't take this as any sort of insult or flaw, just a reality.  And then there was Dorian.  Only after Dorian left him did he realize how much the man meant to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart Grows Fonder

**Author's Note:**

> Brief note: This story assumes that it's possible to have a quick bit of casual sex with The Iron Bull without going the full romance route, and that Cadash indeed took advantage of that. It's not that difficult to imagine, I think, just not possible in the game. That's all!

The Iron Bull had a long, long history of lovers leaving him. He didn't take this as any sort of insult or flaw, just a reality. He was a man meant to be taken in small doses, never long-term.  And, honestly, he wasn’t inclined to pursue long-term relationships in the first place.  He knew himself, and he knew people. 

Truly, he hadn’t had many opportunities for such things, given his job.  It was difficult to maintain things when you hadn’t settled anywhere, and Bull was a firm believer in not shitting where you ate - or, in his case, not fucking where he worked.  
  
Skyhold was an opportunity.  Skyhold didn’t feel like work.  His thing with Cadash began and ended there.  
  
She was a beautiful contradiction, a self-contained explosion of a person.  A dwarf, but her speech was clipped  and surface-polished.  Her hands were so small against his, but they held onto him with such strength and heart-crushing need that she left hot little after-images of her touch on him.  And her  _hair_.  Red as rust, falling down her back in uneven waves when she undid her braids.  
  
She was so gentle with him when she let him go.  And way too damn eloquent.  “I don’t want to keep you captive, Bull,” she told him.  “You, of all people, deserve so much better than where I’m going.”  
  
“My door’s always open, boss,” he told her.  He smiled because he knew that this wasn’t an ending, just the reworking of an agreement.  
  
And, yes, she would occasionally nip at him with affection.  The sting of her little hand on his thigh as she passed him, a rebellious smirk on her face when she looked back to see his reaction.    
  
There were a few dalliances after her, responses to warm and wanting advances over food and drink and song.  
  
And then, Dorian.  
  
If Cadash was just a contradiction, Dorian was a perfectly-planned accident.  It was almost remarkable, the way that he sidled into Bull’s room and tried to make it look like he had simply gotten lost on the way to the privy.  He cloaked himself in anger and indignation, when Bull suggested this.  
  
For you to accuse me of coming here under false pretenses - I am  _not_  that kind of man!” Dorian said, crossing his arms.  
  
“What kind of man are you, then, big guy?” Bull said.  He leaned back, where he sat, relaxing.  
  
“I am - straightforward and forthcoming in my intentions, thank you very much.”  Dorian was almost stammering, avoiding eye contact.  
  
“And what would those intentions be?”  
  
Dorian made a frustrated huff, not quite complaint or retort, before lunging forward and holding Bull’s face with both hands, kissing him.  
  
Bull responded, in kind, but held him at a small distance when they stopped for air, keeping his hands on Dorian’s waist.  “Easy, there.  You want to ride the Bull, you need to know the rules.”  
  
“Rules?  Ha.  Of course the Qunari has rules…”  Dorian breathed deeply, flushed red and sweating on Bull’s lap.  
  
“Only so you enjoy yourself,” Bull said.  “It’s simple.  Whatever I do to you, if you tell me to stop, I stop.  That’s it.”  
  
“ _Don’t_  stop,” Dorian said.  He leaned in, again, pressing his chest to Bull’s.  
  
Bull took Dorian’s hands in his fist, keeping his wrists pressed together, as if he were praying.  He lifted, and pulled.  “Still want to?” Bull said.  
  
“Maker,  _yes,_ ” Dorian gasped.  
  
Bull began gently with him, feeling haste and impulsiveness in Dorian’s actions.  But Dorian did not resist, or struggle against the new boundaries that Bull set around him, one by one.  He flowed and gently pushed back in his own way - but in the silence between the highs, he pulled, with force.  
  
“Why have you  _stopped?_ ” Dorian said, underneath him, naked and warm, and with hard demand in his voice.  “I did  _not_  tell you to  _stop._ ”  
  
“I’m catching my breath,” Bull said.  
  
“You?  Catching your breath?” Dorian said, himself gasping for air.  “Am I  _tiring_ you?”  
  
“We’ll see about that,” Bull replied, and he returned to Dorian’s body.  
  
They climbed and fell together three times, that night.  Bull drifted to sleep with Dorian draped over his chest, rising and falling with his breaths and leaving a fire-smell on his skin.  
  
He was gone in the morning, which Bull expected.  What he didn’t expect was for Dorian’s remarkably tiny smallclothes to be hanging off his bedpost.  They put Bull in mind of what the wood-workers and fishers of Par Vollen wore in the summer, when the sun was hot and clothes were a burden - a strap around the waist, and a cloth between the legs, and little else.  
  
Dorian was far too clever a man to be merely forgetful, pulling a strip-and-dash like that.  So Bull waited, and, yes, Dorian cracked.  Bull was teasing him, at the time, about Dorian using them as an excuse.  He had no expectation beyond Dorian coming back to claim them in some way or another.  And Dorian did come back.  
  
But then he kept coming back.  Again, and again, to the point where it began to feel strange to not have Dorian by his side - in his bed, in battle, in general.  
  
Dorian, he began to realize, filled him.  Not literally, of course - neither of them were into that.  It was more like Dorian… took whatever shape or situation or emotion that Bull presented to him, and he would enter it so completely and thoroughly that Bull would feel - for a time -  _complete._   That, yes, he was a sturdy, finished thing, capable of existing in and of himself.  That he would not cease to be if there was no longer a purpose for him.  That had  _control_.  
  
But this was a temporary sensation.  One that came and went in the space of evenings, or afternoons, when Dorian’s words or his body could be taken in by him.  Afterglow was what some people called it, wasn’t it?  Just a gentle residue of very good sex.  
  
And then he was made Tal-Vashoth.  
  
Cadash comforted him with words, genuine and soft, and coming from a knowing place.  They coated and warmed him, but something in them wasn’t enough.  
  
And some nights later, Bull went to Dorian’s chambers instead of waiting for Dorian to come to him.  He didn’t let Dorian make a single demand or barb or tease.  Bull rarely wanted, but here, he  _needed.  
  
_ “ _Kadan,_ ” he told Dorian, for the first time, “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”  
  
“I understand,” Dorian told him, clearly, and truly.  
  
They didn’t have sex - and, no, they didn’t make love either.  They just slept together, Bull feeling Dorian’s warm presence under his arm, that heartbeat slow and certain in his chest.  
  
If there was nothing else, he had this.  Momentarily, but without any doubt.  
  
But history was history.  And Bull knew how people worked.  
  
And with the world saved and everything settled, Dorian told him that he was going back to Tevinter.  
  
“There’s just so much I can  _do,_  now,” he explained, with an enthusiastic fervor usually devoted to excuses.  “I might not get an opportunity like this again.”  
  
“You don’t need to ask my permission,” Bull told him. “Not here.”  
  
Dorian made an exasperated sigh, but he was smiling.  “I wasn’t asking permission,” he said.   
  
“I know,  _kadan_ ,” Bull said.  
  
There, Dorian rolled his eyes.  “If you’re going to tease me, have the decency to use the King's Tongue, will you?”  
  
Bull smiled, keeping it to himself, telling himself that it was better Dorian didn’t know.  He never held people if he knew it wouldn’t suit them.  
  
“I won’t forget you, you know,” Dorian continued, a softness entering his voice.  “You’ve helped me… realize some things about myself that I don’t think I could have faced otherwise.”  
  
“Like the fact that you set things on fire when you come too hard?” Bull said.  
  
“That was - one time, I’ll have you know!” Dorian said.  
  
“And it was  _awesome,_ ” Bull replied.  He watched Dorian’s face carefully, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to watch his indignance melt into laughter quite that way again.  
  
And then, Dorian was gone.  
  
And Bull carried on.  He carried out his duties.  He followed.  Some time passed.  
  
It took an oddly long amount of time for people to start accosting him again, in the Herald’s Rest, in other places.  There were half-spoken explanations of assumptions that Bull was already taken, but with the Tevinter gone…  
  
There was nothing in the way, Bull would assure these people.  If they were willing, and he was willing, then they could carry on.  But…  
  
Well, not today.  Or, say, why don’t you give that fellow there a try, instead?  He looks like a fun time.  
  
For some reason, the idea of bedding with these people felt like the fulfillment of a service than anything done out of true attraction or desire.  Tamassran work - he tried not to think of that, but it was the closest and most accurate metaphor.  And that wasn’t his job.  
  
So he carried on.  He drank and he fought and he tried to be comfortable, living with absence.  
  
It felt like someone had lit a fire in his stomach when he heard the first wisp of a rumor that Dorian had returned to Skyhold.  The feeling spread across his body like heat over glass, hollow and fragile, and he kept it lightly-held inside him as he went to find Dorian.  
  
Dorian was in a conversation with Sera, his smile wrinkled from her questions, when their eyes met again.  Bull waved at him from across the hall, and - Bull was a fine reader of expressions, but he couldn’t tell if the look on Dorian’s face was relieved or happy or something else entirely.  It vanished a moment later, Dorian gesturing with wide, alert eyes to come over.  
  
Bull wouldn’t let it be that easy.  He gestured over his shoulder -  _Come outside_  - and turned, and left.  
  
It took some time for Dorian to come to him on the ramparts, and he had a breathless, put-upon expression as he made it up.  “Any particular reason as to why you choose to say your hellos all the way up here?” he said.  
  
"Wanted to see if you'd follow," Bull said.  "If you wanted to see me that much."  
  
" _Really_ ," Dorian said.  
  
"Well, that and some privacy.  I don't want to be interrupted when you tell me about all your adventures," Bull said.  "You cause much trouble in Tevinter?"  
  
"As much as I could," Dorian said.  
  
"Elaborate," Bull said.  
  
And Bull listened to him, and felt the familiar, tide-like push and pull of their conversation returning.  His body relaxed, in hearing it, leaning against the wall.  
  
"Any good lays while you were out, then?" Bull asked, when the rhythm called for it.    
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"Come on, don't tell me you didn't find any time for  _fun_ in a whole year abroad," Bull said.  "I wanna hear about it."  He wanted to hear about how they'd made Dorian happy.  
  
Dorian's smile was strangely pitying.  "If you insist..." he said.  "There was this... charming young man I met on the Orlesian border - Jean-Luc, I think his name was.  We really weren't together long, but he was nice."  
  
" _Nice._ "  
  
"What?"  
  
" _Just_ nice?"  
  
"I'm not going to - go into  _detail_ about it," Dorian said, crossing his arms.  "Unless that's... er, what you're looking for..."  
  
"I couldn't care less," Bull said, shrugging.  "I just wanted to know if you were being treated right, out there.  Had a good time.  I suppose  _just nice_ can be a good time."  
  
Dorian's face had an argument with itself, breaking from worry to frustration and back with sighs.  "It...  _was_ nice," Dorian admitted, finally.  "But, if you can believe it, I kept... thinking back to you."  
  
"Oh?" Bull said.  He smirked, almost sincere.  "I must have spoiled you, then."  
  
"Well... no, it wasn't that..."  Dorian re-crossed his arms.  "Jean-Luc had  _remarkable_  technique, in fact.  It was... the other things.  They didn't - they weren't  _there_ for me like you always seemed to be.  There was nothing when we weren't together."  
  
"Uh... huh."  
  
"You're... different, Bull," Dorian said.  He looked at his hands, an awkward smile on his face.  "You're the only man I've ever been with that didn't make me feel like I was... making sacrifices to be with him."  
  
"Sacrifices, huh."  
  
" _You_ have to know what I mean," Dorian said, anxiously.  "Relationships where... you have to trade security for discretion, or - or work for pleasure.  I never...  _had_  that with you.  You just...  _welcomed_ me.  Let me in wherever you could."  A self-depreciating chuckle followed.  "You really are one of a kind."  
  
The hollow, glass-feeling in Bull's chest intensified.  "So... what," he said, "did you come back because you missed me?"  
  
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but..."  Dorian looked up.  Bull knew the expression on other people, on targets, as infatuation, delirium, but here, it was...  "Yes."  
  
This wasn't afterglow.  This wasn't intimacy, physical response.  
  
"I missed you too,  _kadan,_ " Bull said.  
  
Dorian sighed, sweet disappointment in his voice.  "And we're back to the teasing.  Some things never change, I suppose."  
  
"It means 'my heart.'"  
  
Every ounce of defensive sarcasm and spice drained out of Dorian's face.  "What...?"  
  
" _Kadan_.  My heart."  Bull felt his expression soften, an uncertain smile on his face.  "You came back, so... you deserve to know."  
  
"You... you really..."  Dorian breathed out smiles, the beginnings of laughter.  "So every time you called me that...!"  
  
"I didn't want to keep you," Bull said, simply, an explanation.  "Wouldn't be fair."  
  
"Didn't want to-!" Dorian cut himself off and rushed to Bull, standing on his toes to throw his arms around Bull's shoulders.  His scent filled Bull's nose - smoke and sandalwood.  His chest hurt, taking it in, too overwhelmed with lost familiarity.  
  
"If I had known you wanted me like that, I would never have left," Dorian said, his lips near Bull's neck, mustache brushing his skin.  "I'll never leave again."  
  
"Please don't say that," Bull said.  "I'll never hold you against your will."  
  
"I know you won't." Dorian held him tighter.  "Say it again.  That word."  
  
" _Kadan_."  
  
Bull leaned down, and he let Dorian kiss him.  
  
Together, for a moment, they were complete.  

**Author's Note:**

> Dorian not knowing what " _kadan_ " means was inspired by the lovely JustJasper and her Fake Adoribull Banters. (I'll add a link later!)


End file.
